Dear George,

I am aware that other people feel differently. That is why I prefixed my second paragraph with the words, 'to me.'

I see the main problem with death is dealing with the death of others. We all will be successful in our own deaths. We need no rehearsals.

A cousin of mine recently died. He was about ten years younger than I am. He had Parkinson's and was incoherent for some time before his end. He had several degrees and lived the life of a recluse. When I last saw him his apartment had piles of old Wall Street Journals and other periodicals. His younger brother who has PhDs in jurisprudence and pharmacology is deep in the grip of Alzheimer's. His wife says that he responds to music and not much else.

I have no health problems besides allergies which are a minor irritant, go to the pool six mornings a week and was out the previous two Saturdays hunting fungi with the Queensland Mycological Society. Friends and relatives are sick and dying, and I wonder what I am still doing here.

Recently I have been enjoying the beautiful poems on death written by Swinburne, Dickinson, Keats, Donne, Christina Rossetti and others.

Dear boxgum,

You wrote: “Christians live with death” That is true for many Christians. I wonder at the Christian preoccupation with death. It is something that will happen to us all. However, while we are alive why not celebrate our life rather than live with death? It seems a rather morbid preoccupation to me to live with death. I would rather live with life than death. Living with death seems to me to trivialise life and make it a mere preoccupation while we are preparing for what is really important to some Christians, death.

You also wrote: “in a way, death is indeed final.”

That sounds like a denial to me. Death is final in all ways.

You wrote: “I do not really understand the day of judgement and heaven and hell.” What is to understand? They are human inventions so humans can interpret them any way they want to.

You wrote: “So for a faithful Christian, death should be a resting place from a full life lived well.”

I agree with part of your sentence. Death should be a resting place from a full life lived well.” That should be true for anyone not just Christians. At the moment I am saddened by the death of a cousin who I don’t think lived a full life.

Your sense of community in joining with others in church sounds like a good thing. May you enjoy the fellowship proceeding from that. I am sure that occasionally you don’t live with death but enjoy life. We humans are tribal creatures. In our fragmented modern existence we may belong to no tribe or belong to many. Your fellowship with other Christians satisfies some of the demands of tribalism.

I will enjoy the fellowship at the Global Atheistic Convention, my fellowship with the Queensland Mycological Society and my fellowship with you as a fellow contributor to the discussion on this thread.

I hope we will have further dialog.

Dear david f,

>>I am aware that other people feel differently. That is why I prefixed my second paragraph with the words, 'to me.'<<

I was aware you were aware, I just was not sure others were, due to the many sweeping statements and judgements on this and similar threads (about other people’s beliefs or feelings), that do not come with such a prefix.

Thank you for the personal account of your cousin’s death. I agree that dealing with other people’s death can be a problem. Once an atheist friend of mine, knowing that I was “religious”, asked me to console her Asian friend who was dying of cancer. She was a Buddhist. So I explained to her that although I have some ideas about existence that goes beyond the material, they are culturally grounded and different from how a Buddhist would see them. (As I would say today, Christians and Buddhist - more precisely those of them who believe in “spirits” etc - use different models of the Ultimate Reality that lies beyond the reach of science). I suggested she called a Buddhist monk, which she did, and the monk apparently did a job that I - or any Christian - would not have been able to do in that position.

Similarly, when asked by a priest to write an apologetic essay, I used the fact that he knew I was a mathematician, and replied something like: “All I could tell a non-Christian is: I know my life-equations admit other than trivial (materialist) solutions. Your equations are not my equations but maybe they also admit other than trivial world-view solutions. And maybe also in your case those non-trivial solutions are the ones that matter”.

Hello again davidf

You have misinterpreted my comments in concluding that death is a preoccupation to Christians, and so myself. My explicit position is that we face death as a reality of life and one to be met as a completion, into the presence of God. You as an athiest, I understand, face death as a reality of life and being a finality into oblivion. Whatever the outcome, you and I have no power over it. As Sells says, there is no battle to win, as there is no war. It can only influence us here and now on earth, in life.

Concerning social groupings. Aristotle wrote of us humans as social beings. Social groups, athiests or believers or whatever, are not necessarily tribal, unless one is on the low scale of reflexivity. My social groups extend well beyond the Church grounds. The good life rests in relationships. As a Christian my relationship with God, through the Risen Lord and power of the Holy Spirit, is paramount. From this all other relationships are strengthened in love in their making, sustaining and breaking where necessary.

History is made of bold actions. A whole new history unfolded with a man who resolutely took to the road to Jerusalem some 2000 years ago, knowing what was likely to happen to him. Since that time Christians know that they have company if and when they may discern to take their own resolute walk to Jerusalem as their life unfolds in the service of others.

A Good Friday reflection.

Dear boxgum,

You wrote: “Christians live with death.” That certainly sounded like death was a preoccupation of Christians.

I was not making a hierarchy of social groupings. My definition of tribalism is merely the desire of human beings to associate with other human beings with whom they share an outlook, religion, occupation, ethnicity, language or some other aspect of life. It seems a natural part of the human condition.

You are a believer in Christianity. I am not nor am I a believer in any other religion. I believe religions have a finite life. At one time Manichaeism extended from Spain to China. It lasted from the third to the eighteenth century which is longer than Islam has been on earth and almost as long as Christianity. I believe that at some time in the future Christianity will go the way of Manichaeism and the pantheon of gods of the Classical world. As far as I know nobody worships Zeus or Jupiter any more. The classical religions are of interest only to antiquarians although the legends accompanying those religions are still preserved in prose and poetry.

Religions may have a long life. Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism all predate Christianity. I believe that, at some time in the future, Christianity and all other current religions will go the way of Manichaeism and the classical pantheon. The Bible will be regarded as a book of legends, and Jesus will take his place among many other legendary figures of humanity’s past.

I don’t believe that humanity will be without religion. As Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity have been invented by humans future humans will probably invent other religions.

Dear George,

I share your objection to casually lumping all religious beliefs together in one inchoate mass. I believe the locution, Judeo-Christian, came into prominence as a result of the Cold War when the ‘Judeo-Christian’ United States opposed ‘Godless’ communism. At that time ‘under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and the US motto became ‘In God we trust’ as opposed to the former motto, E Pluribus Unum (one out of many). If we reflect on it Christianity centres around Jesus, his life and his teachings whereas he has no place in Judaism even though many of his teachings come from Judaism. The term is an oxymoron. If we define religion as incorporating a belief in God we eliminate Buddhism and other non-theistic religions from consideration as religions. However, we do not have make an ironclad definition of religion to discuss it.

The imposition of a religion on those of another belief can cause new insights. After the reconquest of Spain by Christian armies Catholicism was imposed on Muslims and Jews. When the pressure was relieved most people either went back to their original faith or stayed Catholic.

However, some of their descendents broke new ground. They could no longer accept without question the precepts of either faith. Two of their descendents are Montaigne, a Catholic, and Spinoza, a Jew. I think their reflections could be a direct result of their ancestry. At present I am looking into the works of both with a view to writing on them including a speculation on the influences that the two religions had on them and their worldview.